While alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson continues to bluff his way through the UK’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic - there are still hundreds of infections confirmed each day, and around 500 deaths in the past week - his actions, and those of his Government and media cheerleaders, pale into insignificance when put alongside the horror show that is the right-wing in the USA.
There, Covid-19 is effectively out of control in some states, most notably those that reopened their economies prematurely. This was not helped by Combover Crybaby Donald Trump cheering on Republican Governors for approving the premature actions. Worse, it is Trump’s fellow right-wingers who are taking the fall for the whole shambles.
Those who look in regularly on
Zelo Street will remember Brexit Party
Oberscheissenführer Nigel “
Thirsty” Farage being granted permission to enter the USA so he could address those unable to get into a much-trailed Trump rally at Tulsa, OK, where he ended up
addressing an empty car park. Inside the arena, where The Donald gave his usual rambling spiel, no-one wore a mask. So the virus was spread around.
One of
those infected was former Presidential hopeful Herman Cain. More than 30 days on, and he is still hospitalised. Cain is 74 years old; as an African-American, that puts him in two high risk categories. Yet rally attendees were packed together, no-one wore a face covering - and several Trump staffers later tested positive for Covid-19.
It gets worse: as Daniel Lippman at
Politico has reported, one of the co-founders of Turning Point USA has just succumbed to Covid-19. “
The co-founder of conservative student group Turning Point USA, Bill Montgomery, has died from complications of the coronavirus, according to two friends of his. Montgomery, who started it in 2012 with young conservative star Charlie Kirk, died at the age of 80 on Tuesday from Covid-19, according to pro-Trump conservative strategist Caleb Hull”. Another in a high risk group.
And while TPUSA’s other co-founder Charlie Kirk “
stated that he believed that the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions should self-quarantine”, he has also said “
Do not force me to wear a mask, it’s that simple. I’m not gonna do it, I’m not … the science around masks is very questionable … we have a huge civil liberty issue here”.
Not much liberty when you’re dead, Charlie. But it gets even worse: cheerleading for the right-wing, hosts at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced
my arse) are actively downplaying the horrendous death and infection figures, typical being Laura Ingraham, telling “
Texas...looking pretty good. Bad news for the ‘Shut it all Down’ Democrats”.
Texas has fewer than half the population of the UK. What she praises is a seven day average daily infection rate of around 7,500. Deaths in the Lone Star State are running at well over 300 a day (equivalent to 750 for a UK-sized population). And a prime time host at the right’s favourite broadcaster says that is “
looking pretty good”.
Small wonder that lawyer Andrew Laufer told Ms Ingraham “
Having over 7k new cases today isn’t pretty good. It’s a damn tragedy. Get your head out of the glue jar”.
Be thankful if you’re not in the USA right now.
There's nobody flying the plane any more.
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It has now been reported that Cain has died from the virus.
ReplyDelete"Masks will not be mandatory for the event, which will be attended by President Trump. PEOPLE ARE FED UP!" Cain tweeted the day before he was hospitalized.
ReplyDeleteYou're going to have to do an update... he died. Not that that will make any of the GOP see sense, they will just blame old age; and the rest will call it a conspiracy and blame it on him not drinking bleach, failing to shove UV bulbs up his backside, and not taking massive doses of hydro[what ever the hell its called].
ReplyDeleteThere's a massive campaign going on via social media and useful idiot right-wing journos to spread disinformation about the pandemic.
ReplyDeleteFirst thing to note is the Covid weirdos rant against almost any attempt at controlling the virus...
1. Masks. Masks are bad. Masks mess up your oxygen or give you co2 poisoning. Masks are muzzles. Masks are a sign of submission to the new world order. Or something.
2. Contact tracing. Bad. Lets gubmint spy on you. We'll not mention those cell phones with GPS units everyone carries.
3. Vaccine. Bad. Vaccines are bad because they cause autism or some nonsense. Plus Bill Gates.
4. Schoolteachers. Bad. They're in unions and they want kids to be safe but actually just want a sneaky holiday.
5. Dr Fauci. Also bad. Now to you or me this guy may be one of the best qualified and experienced infectious disease doctors on the planet. But to the right he's bad because, well, he disagrees with Trump and might secretly have created the virus with Bill Gates.
6. The virus itself. Which is either fake or a Chinese bioweapon but also just the flu, bro.
7. Medical staff in general. Bad. You'd imagine the right would be eternally thankful for medical staff risking their lives to save others but... haha. NO.
Okay, so what do they actually want to do to tackle the virus?
1. Herd immunity. The idea that we infect everyone and somehow we'll be over it. But if you recall your basic biology natural herd immunity tends not to work because the new generation of children have no immunity and end up spreading bugs to those who do. Hence the need for vaccinating babies. But wait... vaccines are bad. So we'll just opt for genocide instead.
2. Treatment! What treatment do the right agree on? Hydroxychloroquine. A miracle cure, the demon semen lady said so, along with thousands of bots on social media. In fact is so amazing it cures 100% of cases, unlike any other medication ever which always has patients who can't tolerate/are allergic. The second treatment is the magical zinc supplements. Put the two together and you're super-cured.
3. Shaming. Another right strategy is to cleverly hope to boost the economy by shaming people who wear masks or PPE or avoid crowded situations. Call them pussies, laugh at them, will totally do the trick and before you know it everyone will be out hugging like the Tellytubbies.
4. Lying and obfuscation. Herman Cain died of cancer but the liberal doctors wrote Covid 19! The numbers aren't that bad! Deaths are going down, unless they're going up in which case its still not as bad as the black plague so stop being pussies and go to Disneyworld...
It is tempting to think this drivel is limited to Americans of a, umm, skewed political outlook.
Nope. Very much a thing here, too. Before she went Twitter quiet Allison Pearson would regularly post similar nonsense along with other Telegraph Hobgoblins. Pearson is also followed by the 'KBF' lot who are apparently the minions of expat accountant oddbod Simon Dolan. This goes back a while, too. From a Pearson article while Boris was sick:
"If only there had been a woman by his side. She would have told him to get off the laptop and put down the phone, nagged him to keep up his fluids, forced zinc tablets down his throat and insisted that his health was far more important than the next Cobra meeting."
Note the zinc thing again. I accidentally took too high a dose of zinc once on an empty stomach. Thought my appendix had blown, the pain was agonising, so can imagine what would have happened if a wheezing, ill Boris on the verge of organ failure had his missus OD him on zinc. Yikes.
Final thing to note, re: herd immunity and vaccines. The right in the US and especially Pearson here seem absolutely convinced that kids can't spread the virus despite the fact that a) They already have and b) Youngsters have more bugs in general because of their developing immune system. The push to send kids to unprepared schools, especially in the US is going to be catastrophic.
When someone writes a clearheaded account of the current situation like the above post, I feel a cold chill in my guts. I think the problem is one of 'domain specificity' amongst the educated and good old fashioned ignorance in the case of the uneducated.
DeleteI met a Telegraph columnist in a nightclub once. We ended up getting really drunk and going back to my place
ReplyDeleteShe was all over me in the taxi, stroking and caressing me and whispering filth into my ear. But as soon as we got through the front door she stiffened up and her attitude changed completely.
"What the fuck is that pathetic little thing?" she demanded. "How the hell do you think that you're going to satisfy me with that?"
"I'm sorry, Allison," I replied, "it's the biggest fridge I could afford."
Dammit, character limit and mistake. This bit ' new generation of children have no immunity and end up spreading bugs to those who do' should be 'those who don't in the adult population' - i.e. the 40% or so who haven't been infected previously. Not the immune get reinfected - though that may be possible with some illnesses but probably not covid.
ReplyDeleteApologies.